Assisting to a live event is usually an enjoyable experience as all our senses are overwhelmed by various sensations. The assisting is therefore more enjoyable than a remote assisting via a television program related to said event. Unfortunately, it is usually difficult to have more than one view of the event when assisting to said event. This is particularly true during Formula 1 Grand Prix competitions, where a viewer is usually seated at a particular point of the circuit. Usually in that case, the viewer cannot have access to other parts of the circuit unless a large screen is available for instance. This may avoid the viewer to enjoy an action that is taking place at another location of the circuit unavailable to him.
Various solutions have been implemented in order to enable the viewer at the live event to access more information about the event.
For instance, in some major car racing events, such as CART/NASCAR, radio scanners are available. Such radio scanners enable the live event viewer to scan and listen to conversations between a pilot and his crew. Unfortunately the device lacks excitement and entertainment because it only offers sound, making it difficult for the user to easily understand who they are listening to and being potentially more disruptive than enhancing.
Mini portable television sets have been developed and are already available on the market. Via such mini portable television sets, the live event user can watch the race to the extent that it is broadcast, but, in most cases, the live events are broadcast on cable TV and are therefore inaccessible to these devices. These mini portable television sets have therefore limited applications and do not offer the excitement or any added value of the event that would motivate the users to widely use it.
Wireless handled devices based on web technology have also been developed. These devices run on PDA and are linked to the web. Such devices provide VIP guests and general audience live timing and scoring, radio feeds and background info on team cars, car drivers, golf players, etc. They integrate rich multimedia and interactive interfaces. Unfortunately, these devices lack with many drawbacks. A first drawback is the fact that the technology is usually implemented using a point-to-point connection, such point-to-point connection does not allow a massive use of the device at a live event as an important frequency bandwidth would be necessary to serve an important number of users. Such devices have a limited effectiveness when delivery video content due to the limited bandwidth used. Moreover, data compression schemes are mandatory in order to cope with limited bandwidth. It is difficult, in these conditions, to have a real time transmission of video data streams. These devices are also very expensive due to the fact that they are based on an expensive hardware architecture.
There is a need for a method and apparatus to overcome the above-mentioned drawbacks.